


Our Love

by myriad_of_musings



Category: Carmilla - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Angst, Domestic, F/F, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Long-Distance Friendship, Long-Distance Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-06-09 15:30:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6912916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myriad_of_musings/pseuds/myriad_of_musings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Domestic Hollstein on a Sunday morning. Flashback of their meeting one another and how they fell in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunday Mornings with You

Carmilla lazily pulls Laura closer before nuzzling her face into Laura’s exposed shoulder. She loves the smell of Laura’s smooth, soft, always sweet skin and can’t help but press gentle loving kisses to it as she continues to try to fall back to sleep. About three kisses in and Laura begins to stir. As per usual, sleepy groans and mumbles accompany Laura’s pushing back into her big spoon. “Caaaaarrrrmm,” Laura breathes out before asking what time it is. Carmilla chuckles between kisses and mumbles something surprisingly close to what sounds like 8:00 a.m. “Why are we awake this early on a…a….wait…what day is it?” Another chuckle before checking her phone, Carmilla replies “Sunday, cupcake. It’s Sunday.” Long sleepy sighs follow from both women still laying tangled up together in their bed. “Why don’t we just stay in bed today and be lazy?” Carmilla asks as she attempts to hide a huge yawn escaping her lips. As Laura rolls over to look at the beautiful woman next to her a shy smile creeps across her face. “Why not?” Laura asks in reply as she snuggles closer into Carmilla’s unusually warm body. “Yea? You mean it?” Carmilla shockingly asks. “Mhm. I’d love nothing more than to stay right here with you today.” Laura retorts quickly. They lovingly smile into each others gaze as Carmilla leans across Laura and rips herself from the bed. 

Both racing to the bathroom to brush teeth and maybe sneak a playful tap of the others rear end when they aren’t looking is a fun way to start the morning, while returning to bed, cuddling into each other, and reminiscing is the best way to spend the day. Carmilla seems to be in a particularly mushy mood now as she slowly cradles Laura’s face before gently kissing her with all the love she can muster. Pulling away for a second to whisper “I love you, cupcake” before pressing another powerful kiss to Laura’s lips leaves the blonde a little breathless. After Carmilla’s spontaneous show of affection she looks up at the woman she loves with one desire today “Will you tell the story of how we met, baby? It always makes me so happy. Already today I can feel the fight to be happy.” It’s all Laura can do not to smother the love of her life in adoration right then, but she refrains and instead pulls Carmilla extra close where she begins to trace patterns on the porcelain skin only she can touch and tell the story of their love.


	2. Getting to Know You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura tells the story requested by Carmilla in Chapter 1. Really a flashback of how these two met years ago.

Corporal Karnstein rests quietly in her sandy bunk while the world around her seems to be a torrent of busyness. Camp Fallujah, Iraq wasn’t exactly her number one travel destination when she dreamed of running away as a teenager, and definitely wasn’t her favorite place to be at the moment. Who knew I would miss small town life so much? Opening Instagram she quickly types in the name of her favorite quaint, little cafe to daydream about what a nice big, hot cup of coffee would be like sitting there in the window again. Will this still be the same when I come home? IF I come home? While scrolling through the latest candids of locals throughout the cafe she cant help but smile at familiar faces, until suddenly she finds herself stopped on one particular image she just cant scroll past. A honey haired woman, about her age, sitting at HER favorite window staring out at the mostly boring street outside with the steamiest cup of coffee that Carmilla knew must have contained enough cinnamon to fill the entire place. It was simply breathtaking. Who is she?! This dreamy eyed young woman definitely wasn't a local. Thank goodness for technology and direct messaging! After what seemed like a sufficient amount of time spent prowling through this poor girl’s instagram, there was only one option remaining. I must message this Laura girl! 

 

Laura Hollis, B.A. That would have a nice ring to it if she could actually find a decent job in this town. No one said employment would be a problem when she was pursuing her degree in media communications with a concentration in journalism at the University of Arkansas. I guess that’s just what happens when you move back to the booming town of Paris, Arkansas with a total population of about 3,500 people. Why did I come back here again? The only exciting thing left to do around here is visit various little local spots she’d purposely neglected in high school and write about them for would be tourists surfing the net. Maybe writing will help me fall asleep. Needing a little inspiration Laura visits her favorite app these days and is surprised to find an expected message from a stranger. Hm. She’s pretty. Two hours later and Laura knows everything there is to know about this seemingly broody stranger and then some. Who is she? How did she find me? Wait…wait…she wants to talk to me?! This girl is so seriously interesting. Maybe. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll um…just…yea. I’ll just be cordial. Play it cool. Yea. That’s me, Laura Hollis, COOL! Ha!


	3. And So It Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chit chatting and internal monologues.

Chatting via instagram was becoming increasingly hard as Carmilla finds herself away from the handy dandy internet source tucked neatly away near her bunk more and more, but she cannot seem to pull her mind away from wandering back to Laura and their “friendly” conversation.

Laura can’t determine if it’s her journalistic instincts drawing her back to checking instagram every few minutes or if this Carmilla girl really is this addicting. Even as she mysteriously disappears for hours on end, Carmilla seems to be the most interesting person this side of the Mississippi who can keep up with Laura in conversation for hours everyday.

After what feels like an eternity within just a few weeks time, commonalities between the two are about as many as hairs on Laura’s little blonde head. Style of music, movies, and love of sleep. Interest in learning, growing, and somehow changing the world. _How can two people who've never met share so many common interests? Why is she so easy to talk to about ANYTHING? Why did I just tell her how much I like to cuddle?? What am I doing???_

_What. The. Actual. Fuck. Carmilla??? Whhhhyyyyyyyy would you tell this girl that???? Why would you tell anyone that????? No one. NO. ONE. wants or needs to know that you hold a pillow at night to help you sleep, even if she told you about her sleep habits first! What is this girl doing to you?_ Laura has just about rattled your bones these last few weeks with her constant inquiries and lovely reassurances when you speak late into the night. She's pretty, smart, fun, and driven. Anything anyone would want in a “friend” or maybe “best friend?” _If only she knew about a few minor details of your life. Like the fact that you are living across an ocean of more than just water and sea life._


	4. Share Your Life With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla and Laura get into a serious convo about their lives.

Paris, Arkansas 

7:00pm

It had been months since graduation and moving back in with Dad. Silently working on your computer all day while sipping sweet tea and watching the seasons change out your window. Loss of interest was an understatement. Going out less and less and being silent more and more was reality now. That degree you worked so hard for is basically useless in today’s economy and your old friend Danny is just too much to be around these days. So what if you didn't want to go hiking or canoeing or rock climbing every weekend anymore?! There just seemed to be something missing in it now and Danny just couldn't understand that, even though you've tried to explain. Life just wasn't the same after college. All the hope and luster for life was gone and you didn't know where to find it anymore. Trying to earn and save some money from all your guest writing that you'd tried to sell to big name magazines wasn't really working as well as you'd thought here in Paris. Left to blogging for the handful of tourists traveling here every year just wasn't enough. _Don't people dream of one day living here? Oh yeah, that wouldn't be Paris, ARKANSAS. Home of the “magical mountains” or whatever crap. This place just screamed good ol boy back in his hometown. Where did that thought come from? Wow! I’ve been here too long. Maybe I should talk to her about this. It’s time isn’t it? It’s been long enough. Six months was plenty of time to get to know someone. I trust her. It’s time!_

Camp Fallujah, Iraq

3:00am

Dirty, hot, loud. Every few hours you can hear the call to prayer drift over the airwaves. A thick layer of dust covers everything even the freshly wiped down gear outside. Dust storms. Orange, eerie, inescapable. The only reliable thing left. One hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit in the heat of summer with no gear on. Oven-like when decked out in layers of cevlar. No escape from the sun, or the constant chatter around you as people come in and out of the bunks. No rest for the weary. Anytime you try to sleep you have nightmares that leave you in a cold sweat. Nightmares of **that** day. You cant escape it, much like you cant escape this place either. Your counselor Perry says you just have to learn to deal with the flashbacks and nightmares until they eventually go away. You can see the sympathy in her eyes as she says it. The same look the medic Laf gives you when they know you're just getting the meds to get a little reprieve. Everyone knows the stress you're under with Serg breathing down your neck all the time and even worse, the General breathing down Serg’s neck. No one wants another event like the one that left you hollow and empty to happen to anyone else. _Maybe you should've listened to Will in the first place and never enlisted. Or maybe you should've taken Kirsch down that alleyway with you on patrol. What a rookie move. And it cost you everything! Where the hell are those pills?!_

 **3:01am Cupcake:** Hey Carm!

 **3:02am Carm:** Hi there Cupcake.

 **3:03am Cupcake:** How has your day been?!

 **3:04am Carm:** Alright. Yours?

 **3:05am Cupcake:** Good! Hey I have a question for you!!

 **3:06am Carm:** Ok. Shoot.

 **3:07am Cupcake:** How did you find me on insta?

 **3:08am Carm:** I was looking at pics of my fav cafe in my hometown and found you sitting in MY window.

 **3:09am Cupcake:** WHAT?! WHERE?!

 **3:10am Carm:** Paris, Arkansas. Cafe Josephine.

 **3:10am Cupcake:** Are you freakin serious rn?! I love that place! I live right by there!!

 **3:11am Carm:** Theres no way thats possible. I thought I knew all the locals.

 **3:12am Cupcake:** Well I just moved back here actually! Anyway! Why haven't I seen you around if thats YOUR window??

_Shit! Shit! Shit! Im finally going to have to tell her. I guess we’ll see where this goes._

**3:14am Carm:** I left that place a long time ago.

 **3:15am Cupcake:** Oh. Well where are you now then?

 **3:16am Carm:** Overseas.

_She obviously doesn’t want to tell you where she is, Laura! Gosh just leave it alone!…..Or maybe she secretly wants you to ask…..?_

**3:18am Cupcake:** Like Europe or…?

_*Sigh* This girl will never give up. Time to bite the bullet._

**3:22am Carm:** No. Like Iraq.

 **3:23am Cupcake:** Oh.

_Why did you ask, Laura?! Of all the places in all the world this is the one no one wants to talk about and the one you cant casually vacation to! I wonder why she's there?_

 

Carmilla wakes up the next day to twenty or so inquiring and somewhat worried sounding texts from Laura. Scrolling through these she's reminded of what she finally told Laura last night and her reaction. _Why would or should it be any different than what it was?_

After taking care of her morning duties Carmilla returns to her bunk to find yet another text from Laura. _I guess she's still going to talk to me after all._ She replies and immediately has to field questions as well as, calm worries that Laura’s rambling brain has come up with throughout the hours. _Maybe she actually cares and thats why she's acting this way with me._

 

Laura cant help but continue her onslaught of questions brought on by this new information. Unfortunately all of a sudden she's not getting any replies. _Maybe its just taking a while to send since she's so far away._ As the night wears on the curiosity turns to dread as Laura is full of new questions. _I hope she's ok. Why hasn't she replied to me since she told me? Maybe I shouldn't have pried so much. Whats the time difference there? Maybe she's just sleeping. But she's never fallen asleep on me before without saying goodnight. Ill just text her._ She's starting to notice it isn't just her questions and now worries that are keeping her awake through the night, but maybe its the absence of Carmilla altogether. 

The sound of her phone buzzing and chiming is the happiest sound Laura can think of at this time in the morning. Its the sound she's been waiting for all night and its her special Big Ben chime that reminds her of Dr. Who and of course…Carmilla. Her fingers cant type fast enough “Ive missed you, are you ok?” and its sent before she even has the chance to realize what she's said.  

 

The talk that follows between Carmilla and Laura is both lengthy and difficult for the pair, but they knew it had to happen. Upon learning of Carmilla’s two year deployment and the remaining six months she has in the field Laura is both surprised and a little relieved to know she’ll be coming home soon. She's still finding it hard to understand exactly why Carmilla was reluctant to tell her where she was, but she learns that its not so easy to explain to Carmilla how much she feels stuck in this town with nowhere to go anymore. _In six months maybe Ill enjoy being here_  fills Laura's thoughts as she finally drifts off to sleep.

 

Carmilla is beside herself with Laura’s presence and the reality that this girl just told her she missed her and was truly concerned for her. It even made her mouth turn up at the corners as if she were going to smile again. That’s a foreign feeling. Explaining her current situation to Laura was equal parts liberating and crushing to feel like she was allowing someone in to her world again. Learning that Laura was in her hometown struggling after her college graduation living with her father again was enough to make her wish she was home again. _Its only six more months. Its only six more months._ That carried her through the rest of her evening duties into those lonely dark hours of night. 

 


	5. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla wakes up from a nightmare and is upset, naturally Laura drags what is really going on out of her.

**2 weeks later**

 

Carmilla wakes up with a shout and quickly scans the room for movement. She spots something tall and dark moving slowly towards her bunk. Her first instinct is to go for her gun, but unfortunately (or fortunately) they are kept under lock and key by Sergeant Belmonde at night so no one pulls a stunt like her old buddy Ell. _Oh shit!_ Now she knows she's heard something! She scrambles back into the wall behind her bunk as she's trying to escape. _Maybe if I close my eyes it’ll just go away._ Just as Carmilla begins to feel the heaviness of something touching her, suffocating her, breathing on her; her phone buzzes the familiar dull buzz. Her eyes snap open to find nothing but the dull glow of a message alert. Her heart is still racing and now she realizes something else. The tears are streaming down her face in a silent scream for help. She doesn’t even bother wiping them away, opening the message she finds Laura’s chipper self smiling at her with sleepy eyes and a somewhat see through white tee shirt, accompanied by: **Good Morning, Hot Stuff!** **:*** Carmilla feels her pounding heart begin to steady, and her breathing hitches. All she can muster up is a solid: **Hi.**

 

Laura wakes up thinking about Carmilla…..again. She cant help the smile that spreads goofily across her face, making her painfully aware of how happy she seems to be waking up this way. Laura remembers she hasn't sent Carmilla a selfie in a while, so a sleepy selfie it is. As soon as it’s sent Laura rolls back over to bury her face back into the pillow and think about how nice it would be to have a pair of arms wrapped snuggly around her again. It takes about half a millisecond for Laura to rapidly grab her phone when she hears the chime of Carmilla responding, even if she was still quite drowsy. But upon reading Carmilla’s response to the cuteness that was Laura Hollis she knows somethings wrong. Her stomach drops, _maybe today wont be as happy as I thought._  
 ****

 

**Creampuff:** Whats wrong Carm?

**Carmoflage:** Nothing. 

**Creampuff:** Please tell me. 

**Carmoflage:** Just a nightmare. 

**Creampuff:** Wanna talk about it?

**Carmoflage:** Not really. I just…I have those sometimes.  

**Creampuff:** Its ok. Im here. I wont leave you. 

**Carmoflage:** Thanks. You don't have to stay you know. Im ok. 

**Creampuff:** But Carm…I want to. 

**Carmoflage:** Oh…ok.  

**Creampuff:** I wish I could help you. I wish you'd just…talk to me. Let me in. 

**Carmoflage:** Laura, its not exactly an easy thing to do. But…if you'd really like me to try…I will. For you. 

**Creampuff:** Please. 

**Carmoflage:** Ive started having these nightmares since moving here. Some nights are worse than others. Some are about things here. Others are about…people. In my life. 

**Creampuff:** What people babe?

**Carmoflage:** An old friend named Ell. She enlisted with me.  

**Creampuff:** Would you mind telling me what happened with her?

**Carmoflage:** She um…she…she pushed me away about six months into deployment, then she tried to kill herself not long after that.   

**Creampuff:** Oh my goodness Carm!!! Im so sorry! Carm I had no idea!

**Carmoflage:** Its ok Cupcake. You didn't know. Its fine. 

**Creampuff:** Carm *air hug* you don't have to tell me anymore if you don't want to.  

**Carmoflage:** I do. I…its kind of nice to talk to someone about it. So…so can I keep talking for a bit? I mean do you mind? 

**Creampuff:** Anything Carmilla. Im here. 

**Carmoflage:** Some nightmares aren't about her. Some are about what happened to me just before she left me. Sometimes I wonder if she blamed herself or if she couldn't be close to me after what happened. Sometimes I just get so furious about how she fucking left me during the hardest part of my life, then Im reminded that she's left in a hospital bed for the rest of her life and Im still here….

 


End file.
